In the News

Congratulations are due to Congresswoman Diana DeGette and a bipartisan team of lawmakers who managed what seems increasingly difficult in these days of hyper-partisanship and Washington gridlock: passage of a major bill full of promise for the American people.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the 21st Century Cures Act, which received massive support in both the House and Senate in recent days, after years of work on the part of DeGette, the Denver Democrat, and Republican Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan.

WASHINGTON — With self-congratulatory zeal and smiles all around, huge bipartisan majorities in Congress have just passed legislation to speed the discovery of cures for killer diseases. At the same time, Republican leaders have been devising a strategy to undo the Affordable Care Act, which has done more than any law in a generation to treat people with those diseases.

“It is a real contradiction,” said Dr. Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society.

With passage in the House of Representatives of the 21st Century Cures Act that I co-authored with Michigan Republican Rep. Fred Upton, we’re just two steps away from a major victory for U.S. research into causes and treatments for disease. The next few days will decide its fate as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote.

More than 700 groups representing patients, health care providers, researchers and others have voiced support for the bill – as has the White House, which provided its enthusiastic endorsement before and just after the House approved it by a vote of 392 to 26.

WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly passed a far-reaching measure on Wednesday to increase funding for research into cancer and other diseases, address weaknesses in the nation’s mental health systems and help combat the prescription drug addictions that have bedeviled nearly every state.

The bill, known as the 21st Century Cures Act, also makes regulatory changes for drugs and medical devices, which critics argue lower standards to potentially perilous levels.

In the coming days, the Republican-controlled Congress is likely to approve legislation that will invest more than $6 billion in public health and medical research over the next decade. It will expedite basic research into new medical devices and disease-curing drugs. It will reform mental health treatment and fund research into brain injuries and Alzheimer’s. The bill authorizes $1 billion to combat the opioid epidemic and $1.8 billion for Vice President Joe Biden’s “moonshot” project to cure cancer.

WASHINGTON — A bill that would make sweeping changes to the medical research field passed the U.S. House on Wednesday, getting U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver that much closer to securing a win for her top legislative priority.

The 392-26 vote was a larger margin than the 344-77 vote that backed a 2015 version of the bill, but came as some Senate Democrats and progressive groups raised concerns over whether the measure does too much to help drug and medical-device companies.

The Colorado Statesman

By Congresswoman Diana DeGette

Recently there’s been a groundswell of support for legislation to right a four-decade wrong: a restriction using federal funds for women’s health care that has predominantly hurt the under-privileged.

This ban, known as the Hyde Amendment, prohibits federal funds in Medicaid and other health programs from being used for abortions.

Four members of Congress want more answers from Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the N.H.L., about what the league is doing, or not doing, about concussions in hockey.

In July, Bettman denied the link between concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease, in response to pointed questions from Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. Last week, another letter was sent to Bettman saying, in part, that “the N.H.L. must do its part to reduce the risk of head injuries and to make hockey, at all levels, a safer game.”